Call for papers

 

Brands are now soaring blatantly in all sectors, countries, cities, universities and colleges, football teams, actors, museums, TV programs.
In the audiovisual sector, the branding strategy helps assert one’s market-position, adopt a policy of differentiation towards other competitors but also reduces the uncertainty regarding the quality of the works and the financial risks involved. It is part of the quality indicators which give credit to the information and help people make their choice.
If this phenomenon is nothing new, a more asserted form of branding in all the audiovisual sectors as well as the arrival of new forms in the branding strategy can be observed today (example: transmedia).
These two developments are at the core of the issues raised by the conference.

It is worth indicating yet that these developments revolve around the branding strategy of the audiovisual sector for the audiovisual sector.
In other words, we intend to question the way the institutions and the artistic goods of the cultural industry assimilate the branding concept in order to promote their structure or their works.
Product and branding placement in audiovisual works isn’t at the core of the issues raised by the conference for this placement represents the strategy of certain companies to communicate about their brands, products or services mainly in the mass consumption sector (air transport, beverages, cars, computers, telephones etc.)

Three main axes will be highlighted :

Defining branding in the audiovisual sector

The « brand » can cover many different areas, notably regarding its field of application -products, services, store brands, companies, institutions-, the perspective it is dealt with (legal, economic, marketing, strategic, sociological) or even its field of activity (television, radio, video games, festivals, cinema, videos and Internet).
The conference will attempt to define the forms, architecture and related practices of the brand in each of these cases.
Some examples : the branding strategy of the major audiovisual groups  (Warner), television channels (Canal Plus), TV shows (Secret Story) film festivals (Festival de Cannes), one director (Woody Allen), one star (Michael Jackson), a saga (Harry Potter), sequels (Pirates of the Caribbean), and a TV series (Dexter).
The specificities of the branding strategy in the audiovisual sector will obviously be at the core of these issues.

The most striking development in the branding strategy of the audiovisual sector is illustrated by the cross-media and transmedia phenomena. The latter which revolutionises numerous aspects of the audiovisual industry and establishes a direct link with the concept of branding would appear essential today when considering a brand. This will be given particular attention in the conference as transmedia works question the boundaries between the areas mentioned above, and now concerns creation, production and diffusion in a single form united by one brand. Usually transmedia works simultaneously range from books, films, TV series, video games, internet sites and multiple associated by-products.
This open system, this « structure en galaxie » whose gateways are all on the same level is perfectly in tune with the logic of communication, and in this respect, is essential to understanding branding in this sector.
Is the aesthetic approach to the creation of a work modified? What aesthetic implications can be observed?
These issues open up the question of branding in multiple areas such as merchandising, spin off, fanfiction and all the forms which can be considered as extensions of the brand.

The strategic management of the brand: branding

What are the foreseeable communication strategies of branding in the audiovisual sector?
The tendency to have the consumer play an active part in the production of the commercial message, the social networks, communities formalised by a participative marketing approach contributes to give a new reality to the brand policy. But how can this change be concretely translated and what will be its consequences?
Along these lines, the branding strategy in the audiovisual sector is illustrated by the Licensing phenomenon. The audiovisual sector has been willing to launch itself into an era of Licences and it would be interesting to probe deeper into this tendency as well as the terminologies of brand extension, and co-branding in the audiovisual sector.
The participation of academics from various backgrounds is desirable: in the fields of information and communication, sociology, management and marketing, economics and aesthetics (considering that transmedia now links the last two domains).

Please send your abstracts (title and summary of half a page) as well as a short biography to helene.laurichesse@univ-tlse2.fr before December 15th, 2011.
Conference languages: English and French